It also emphasizes the real dangers and near disasters that Houdini faced, a far cry from today's televised illusionists. The book does a good job at showing how Houdini worked hard at his illusions, and how this practice (and a penchant for self-promotion) catapulted him to fame. Several of the escape illusions are briefly explained (including Houdini's great illusion making an elephant disappear!), and there's a humorous bent as the author admits that it's difficult to tell which of Houdini's many statements about himself are true! Houdini traveled from town to town, and it wasn't until he Martin Beck, head of the Orpheum Circuit's (a string of vaudeville houses), discovered Houdini that he earned international acclaim, staying five years in Europe. This is an interesting book in the "Who Was" series, detailing Houdini's impoverished boyhood in America (after emigrating from Hungary), his early interest in magic, and a turning point, his discovery of a book about Jean-Eugene Robert-Houdin, the "father of modern magic." Author Sutherland divided the book into 12 chapters, each beginning with "So you want to be a (Magician, Pilot, Hero, Detective, etc.), detailing Houdini's feats in many areas. If the picture on the cover is any indication, Harry Houdini is Sean Penn (there's a striking resemblance).
HARRY HOUDINI BOOKS SERIES
As an educational psychologist, I will highly recommend this series for my "reluctant readers" who often complain that reading (particularly expository text) is "boring." I can imagine that in a year or so he'll be reading these books on his own and using them for school reports. I've now ordered 8 more books in the series and am looking forward to reading them aloud to my son. The upshot was that we both learned a lot from this book and had a great time reading it. He doesn't avoid difficult subjects like death, war, and poverty but at the same time maintains a reassuring tone appropriate for children. The author weaves in discussion of various historical events and figures and provides just the right amount of detail and analysis at just the right level of sophistication for elementary aged children (e.g., World War I, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Spiritualism, The Wright Brothers' first flight, etc.). Not so with this one! This was written so as to be interesting for both children and adults. I've tried to read other biographies to him and many I have found so boring and poorly written that I dreaded finishing them. I read this book aloud to my 7 year-old son, and once we started, he did not want to stop.
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